Blake Irving

In January of 2013 Blake Irving joined Go Daddy, the world’s largest domain name provider and web host, as Chief Executive Officer and Board Director. Under Mr. Irving’s direction, the company has sharpened its focus on helping small businesses around the world grow and thrive online—from digital presence and marketing to commerce, back-office administration and peer/community support.

Prior to Go Daddy, Mr. Irving was EVP and Chief Product Officer at Yahoo!, a role in which he developed and rolled out the first unified product vision and strategy for the company. During this time, he grew personal computer monthly active users from 590 million to 730 million worldwide, grew mobile users from 90 million to 220 million worldwide, delivered 180 new Yahoo web sites worldwide, rolled out new products in 23 new languages and 30 new markets.

Before Yahoo!, Mr. Irving spent 15 years at Microsoft, serving in various senior roles, most recently as Corporate Vice President of the Windows Live Platform reporting to the President and collaborating with the Chief Technology Officer to form platform strategy. In this role, he was responsible for creating and leading a global development and operations organization of more than 4,000 employees in the creation and operation of Microsoft’s global online services. He managed and met an operating and R&D budget exceeding $1 billion and led international development teams in China, Japan, and Europe for Windows Live and MSN.

Other accomplishments at Microsoft include:

• Launching the first version of in-house advertising system (ad-expert), sponsored IAB ad standards and enabled growth of Microsoft advertising revenue to $1.3 billion. • Developing and launching MSN Messenger, surpassing AOL, ICQ, and Yahoo in growth rate; later becoming the market leader with more than 300 million users and more than 70% global share. • Integrating Hotmail into MSN, managing growth and ensuring a re-architecture of the service to manage growth. (Messenger growth from 0 to 18 million users and Hotmail growth from 7 million to 290 million users).

Mr. Irving started his career in 1981 at Xerox. He has been at the forefront of innovation, having been involved in numerous products and services that are now staples of the internet, including typography, communications on the personal computer, subscription services and back-end online advertising. From 2009 to 2010, he was a professor in the MBA program at Pepperdine University. Mr. Irving is a graduate of San Diego State and received an MBA degree from Pepperdine University. He currently resides in San Luis Obispo, CA.